What if your next competitive challenge isn't another retailer, but an AI assistant influencing what your customers discover, compare and buy?
Customer journeys are changing. Consumers are increasingly turning to AI-powered assistants to find information, explore products and support purchasing decisions. Instead of navigating multiple websites themselves, they can ask an AI assistant to help them identify the right product, compare options and, increasingly, complete a transaction.
For retailers, this creates a new opportunity and a new challenge. Being visible online is no longer the only objective. Businesses also need to make sure their products, services and experiences are relevant, accessible and ready for AI-driven interactions.
of global ecommerce could involve AI agents by 2030
of AI shopping searches already happen with zero clicks
conversion lift in conversational shopping flows
Sources: Semrush with Google AI Mode, McKinsey, Adobe Analytics, 2025
The shift from search to AI-assisted commerce
For years, digital commerce has been built around a familiar journey. Customers search, browse, compare and decide.
AI is introducing a new layer into that journey.
Customers can increasingly ask AI assistants for recommendations in natural language.
The assistant can help interpret their needs, compare products and narrow down the available options.
This does not mean that websites, search engines or marketplaces are disappearing. Instead, the way customers reach them and make decisions is evolving.
For retailers, the question is therefore no longer simply how to generate traffic. It is how to make their products and services easy for new digital interfaces to understand, compare and recommend.
It is not one AI. It is several new interactions.
When we talk about "AI shopping", we often describe it as if there were one single technology. In reality, several types of AI agents are beginning to play a role in commerce.
- Consumer agents act on behalf of shoppers, helping them search, compare and make purchasing decisions.
- Platform agents are integrated into digital commerce environments and can influence how customers discover products and services.
- Merchant agents can support retailers by representing their interests, managing interactions and potentially negotiating or executing parts of the customer journey.
Each operates in a different context and has different objectives. Understanding these differences will become increasingly important for retailers as agentic commerce develops.
The opportunity is not simply to optimise for one new channel. It is to prepare for a new layer of interaction between customers, businesses and technology.
The journey is familiar. The decision layer is changing.
The fundamental stages of the customer journey remain the same. What is changing is how customers move through them.
Discovery
Before:
Customers searched for products through search engines, marketplaces and websites.
Now:
Customers can increasingly ask AI assistants for recommendations based on their needs and preferences.
Consideration
Before:
Customers visited multiple websites and compared products themselves.
Now:
AI assistants can help summarise options, compare features, and support purchasing decisions.
Purchase
Before:
Customers manually entered payment details and completed checkout.
Now:
Emerging agentic payment experiences aim to make transactions more seamless, secure and integrated into the customer journey.
Post-purchase
Before:
Customers contacted support through separate channels and waited for assistance.
Now:
AI-powered experiences can increasingly help customers manage requests, returns and other post-purchase interactions.
Loyalty
Before:
Businesses relied on newsletters, loyalty programmes and traditional marketing channels to encourage repeat purchases.
Now:
AI can support more contextual and personalized engagement based on customer needs and preferences.